‘One of the world’s best’

Right now fishing in Phuket has never been better, everything, with the exception of Wahoo, being caught regularly. The island even got a mention in Marlin Magazine, “Phuket, one of the world’s best Sailfishing destinations”.

As the month progressed I had the opportunity of going out, luckily rain-free – surprising as it is now “high” season – someone tell the weather Gods. The fishing was poor, although fish were to be seen everywhere as it’s now the spawning season for Tuna and what predator in its right mind wants chase a lure while they are surrounded by dinner?

You can’t miss them, but only the bigger ones were biting. So the score on the day was 4-3, with a 4-kilogram Tuna and a big Queenie, that’s not forgetting breaking a hook on a rather large Sail.

As I regularly remind folks, usually for conservation reasons, the Andaman Sea is the nursery of the Indian Ocean and this is seeing that nursery in action, moving into full steam ahead. With bait-fish everywhere it’s a bit like trying to catch smoke, you know it’s there, but…

At the time of submitting this article I have no information on the PST competition, but from what I can gather Marlin, Cobia and Sailfish were about but fishing in general was slow, as climate change continues to disrupt what we have come to expect at this time of year.

Last month I wrote about fishing myths and folklore so this month I thought I would recount a couple of other obscure things I have been asked about or told:

“Fishing? I can’t be bothered learning lots of different knots.”

In reality, only one (the “Uni Knot”) or possibly two knots are all you need to know for: line-reel, line-swivel and line-hook connections, and even then that’s what your “decky” is for, this plus leader knots, boat knots and so on. I remember someone once told me, I couldn’t tie a “Bimini Twist”, as if that knowledge made you a better fisherman.

I believe your love of fishing and your catch reports speak for themselves. So don’t be put off big game fishing because some “wannabe” made it sound complicated. On charter boats you just look and learn, remembering more often than not novices run off with the prizes.

Another thing which has come up, more than once: People stop reeling in, stating, “I’ve lost the fish, the line’s gone slack.” This reminds me of a very grateful client who once was told, in no uncertain terms, to reel-in like hell, only to find a big King Mac just about in his lap.

I seem to get this fairly regularly as newbies tend to forget, these fish are faster than the boat, which is often stopped, and it never seems to occur to them that the fish might be heading right up their stern.

This month’s fishing humour comes from Jasper Forde – Shades of Gray.

“You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library,” she pointed to the shelf opposite.

“Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe.”